A Fine Sermon by Father Mark Latcovich--at Euclid's Lourdes Shrine

 

Thoughts on Fr. Mark Latcovich’s Homily at Lourdes Shrine on July 18, 2021

(as remembered by Bob Coughlin)

The readings at yesterday’s mass weren’t bad: Jeremiah 23: 1-6, a Pauline epistle (Ephesians 2:13-18), a responsorial based on Psalm 23, and a gospel from Mark (Mark 6: 30-34) of Jeus preaching to a large crowd. In the Gospel, Jesus's disciples try to get him a break from his ministry, but the people needing his words and actions follow him. There's no getting away from the interruptions and demands, even for needed rest and prayer.

Our homilist was Fr. Mark. I had seen him several times before but what I didn’t know is that he is the current president and rector of Borromeo Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio, the seminary of the Diocese of Cleveland.

Fr. Mark began by remarking on the beauty of the summer day (about 70 degrees and sunny) and the beauty of the place, the hundred-year-old Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Euclid, Ohio. It would be hard to find a more beautiful and more holy place in this town, the place where I grew up. Father Mark briefly referred to the Jeremiah reading warning against “bad” shepherds, who mislead and scatter the flock. Father said, “You know about good and bad leaders, both in our country and in our Church.” Yes indeed!

Early in the homily Father Mark began talking about a young priest he had mentored through seminary. He called him Fr. Bill, but noted that is not his real name. Fr. Bill talked to Fr. Mark one day soon after ordination and told him of his big plans for a transformative Bible study program he wished to lead at his parish. It would change people's lives and energize the people and the church.

So as Fr. Bill began to make his plans for this program, a woman who worked in the parish office knocked on Father’s office door and said, rather desperately, “Father, the toilets in the parish center don’t work! They have to be fixed right away.” Fr. Bill went over to the Parish Center and looked at at the toilets, decided he needed to buy some parts and equipment at Lowe's, and, voila, three hours later the toilets were fixed.

So as Fr. Bill sat down again to his important work on the Bible Study Program, he got a phone call from one of the pillars of the parish, who desperately begged Father Bill to come over to his house. The pet canary had died and his six children were weeping and didn’t know what to do. So Fr. Bill went over to the house and tried to comfort the children. The canary was put into a suitable coffin, a Kleenex box, buried in the backyard, a cross placed upon the grave, with many prayers and blessings uttered by the priest.

So late in the afternoon, Fr. Bill finally got back to work on his important Bible Study Program--when he heard desperate knocking on the rectory door. It was a woman he sort of recognized from around the church. She had a bag of a dozen oranges with her. Father Bill let her in, and this woman talked Father’s ear off for two hours and ate three of the oranges in his presence.

And after that, the basic work day was over and it was time for supper . . . Fr. Bill did not get back to his important work that day.

When Fr. Bill reflected on this day with Fr. Mark, his former rector and advisor, they both discovered that the pastoral work was the interruptions, more than the Bible Study Program. Fr. Mark kidded him as the two priests said goodbye: “Does the Bishop know you are now doing liturgies and sacraments for canaries?”#

We try to go to the outside mass at Euclid's Lourdes Shrine every Sunday in the summer. The celebrant is usually a professor from Borromeo or St. Mary's Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio. The Shrine is the most beautiful and holiest place in Euclid, no doubt.